christopher price

What history tells us about Tom Brady's preseason performance and how it relates to the regular season

Even by Tom Brady’s standards, the quarterback has had a tremendous start to his 2013 preseason.

In two games (39 snaps), he’s 18-for-20 (a 90 percent completion rate) for 172 yards, two touchdowns and no picks. That includes an 11-for-12 performance on Friday night against Tampa Bay, a game in which the quarterback completed his first 11 passes and saw his 12 passing attempts go to six different targets.

How good could his preseason turn out to be? Let’s assume that Brady is a safe bet to play deep into next week’s game against the Lions, as the third game of the preseason usually is the exclusive domain of the starters (at least for the first two-plus quarters), and will sit for most or all of the preseason finale against the Giants. Splitting the difference, that would likely work out to an additional 35-40 snaps, and if he stays on his current pace, that would put him on pace for a preseason stat line of 36-for-40 for 344 yards with four touchdowns and zero picks, which would be one of the best preseason stat lines of his career.

When you’re comparing preseason Brady’s performances, it’s difficult to gauge because snap counts vary from year to year -- and so total yardage should be slightly discounted as a result -- but completion percentage and TD-to-interception ratio should carry the same weight. As a result, over the last decade, you could make a case that Brady’s finest statistical preseason came in 2010. That’s when he had a 74 percent completion rate (37-for-50) for 476 yards with five touchdowns and one interception. You could also make a case for 2006 (65 percent completion rate on 35-for-54 passing for 404 yards with one touchdown and zero interceptions) and 2007 (67 percent completion rate on 32-for-48 passing for 346 yards with three touchdowns and two interceptions).

For Brady, what does history tell us when it comes to whether or not a good preseason can carry over into the regular season? It would be tough to try to take what happened in 2010 and apply it to the regular season, as New England remade its passing game on the fly that year, dealing Randy Moss and reacquiring Deion Branch in October and leaning more on then-rookies Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez as the year went on. (Regardless, Brady turned into one of the finest regular season stat lines of his career -- that season, in 492 pass attempts, Brady threw just four picks and ended up with a 66 percent completion line and 36 touchdown passes to become the first unanimous MVP in the history of the league (his second MVP award.)

But for the most part, history tells us that a good preseason stat line usually means a good to great regular season for Brady. The 2006 and 2007 preseasons were chock full of new receivers, and in each season Brady was able to turn in one of his finest statistical years, with the team reaching the AFC title game and Super Bowl.

In 2006, he did more with less better than any time in his career, and while he didn’t have one of the best statistical seasons of his career, he came within one bad pass of getting his team to the Super Bowl. (He finished the regular season 319-for-516 -- a 63 percent completion rating -- to go along with 3,529 passing yards, 24 touchdown passes and 12 interceptions.) In 2007, Brady led Wes Welker, Randy Moss and Donte' Stallworth to an epic passing display -- he led the league in completion percentage (69 percent), passing yards (4,806) and touchdown passes (50).

(For what it’s worth, when we look at some of the years Brady had subpar preseason stat lines, they aren’t exactly “struggles” in the Sanchez-ian sense of the word. However, some of them do stand out: Last year, he completed 63 percent of his passes to go along with 157 passing yards, one touchdown and one interception. In 2005, he completed 55 percent of his passes -- a low for his preseason work over the last decade -- and had one touchdown and one pick. In 2011, he completed 56 percent of his passes, but he did have 379 passing yards and had a TD-to-INT ratio of 3-to-1.)

In the end, Brady obviously would much rather end up with a Super Bowl championship instead of a preseason MVP award. But the fact that he’s performing the way he is over the first two games of the 2013 preseason with an almost completely different group of receivers than last year is an early sign that the quarterback is dialed in. And regardless of the skill position options he’s found himself working with this summer, it's clear he’s setting himself up for another memorable regular-season performance.

Greg and Chris talk with Mike Reiss from ESPN Boston in hour 2 of NFL Sunday to discuss a variety of offseason happenings with the Pats and throughout the league. Greg and Chris also get into the NFL Draft and where Mariota and Winston will go.

Mike Reiss calls the guys to talk about the offseason news for the Pats. He talks about the Pats/Jets tampoering fiasco, free agency, where he sees Ridley and Connolly ending up, if the Patriots would be interested in Reggie Wayne and more.

In the first hour of the show, Greg and Chris discuss the news coming out of the owners' meetings this week and rule changes. Belichick's blow-up over the league not wanting to spend on endzone cameras was well documented and the guys react. They also talk about the Jets ridiculous tampering charges, free agents still lingering out there, where Stevan Ridley will land and the RB position in New England. Dickerson and Price briefly discuss the adventures of Tom Brady before being joined by WEEI.com's Mike Petraglia to talk all things Pats in the offseason.

Flannery joins Mut to break down the Isaiah Thomas trade to Boston and what it means for the Celtics this season and in the future. Paul also chats with Mut about the other deals that happened at the NBA's trading deadline

Mut, Tomase, and Bradford kick things off talking about Shane Victorino taking offense to people reading into some comments he made about trading for Cole Hamels. They also discuss Blake Swihart and how soon he could be up if Christian Vazquez starts the season on the DL.

Joe Kelly joined the Hot Stove show where he talked about being ready for his next spring training start after a biceps ailment forced him out of his last outing, he talks about his NCAA brackets and how teammate Wade Miley has a perfect bracket still.

Peter Chiarelli joined the Sunday Skate crew to talk about the Bruins playoff push heading into the final handful of games of the regular season. Chiarelli talked about avoiding some of the overly negative feedback he gets while realizing that the team does have real issues. He discusses what went down at the trade deadline and if he was happy with the outcome, Lucic having a down year and underperforming, the salary cap and if he considers it as big of an issue as it's been made out to be and what the future holds for the team.

It's a big hour #2 for the Sunday Skate dudes - they talk about the B's defenseman and what the future looks like at that position, with both moves the team can make and younger guys in the AHL. They also get into the Bruins philosophy on bringing guys up and sending them back down and how players deal with that. Finally, the boys are joined by Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli to discuss EVERYTHING.

The Sunday Skate crew gets the show going discussing the Bruins big, impressive victory over the NY Rangers yesterday. What can you take from that game? According to LB - Lyndon Byers - who called the guys from the road, not a lot. LB drops a dime on what was going on with the Rangers yesterday. DJ and Joe discuss Claude's lines and groupings and the importance of Ryan Spooner. They also get into Lucic, his contributions this year and if he can turn things around.

With the Wells report seemingly wrapping up (we hope), Tim and Lou got to talking about possible fines and punishments the Patriots must face. It's possible that the Patriots will face a small fine, but should they take that laying down? The conversation brings out a little passion from BOTH sides.